A Soul Before the Sin
by Sforzie
Summary: Zidane explores the Invincible before the final showdown with Kuja, and gets an unexpected glimpse into the past..


zidanefic

Disclaimer: Square owns Final Fantasy and all its characters. I'm just playing with them. Sue me and get...um... my little sister's kitten. ^^;  
Notes: This can be considered a companion piece to "Silver and Gold", if you want to. It can be taken on its own, of course. The italicized quotes in the story are from "Silver and Gold", but you don't have to have read that for this to make any sense. This is just a short little pointless thing. Hope you like it. ^_^

A Soul Before the Sin  
By: Sforzie

He was the only one who dared to explore the Invincible. The others seemed only to view it as a hated means of transportation--a necessary evil. True, they ventured down the to the massive room where the eye was kept, and they climbed the long ornate main stairwell to the bridge, but they did not venture much further than there. The group was edgy and nervous, barely able to eat or sleep as they headed for the Iifa Tree.

He left them on the Bridge, left them staring out in contemptation at the heavy blanket of Mist. Despite not having been on the ship for over a decade, he still remembered its layout. The oranate green floors whispered the past back to him, forcing him to remember.

"_Do you want to play, Ku-jah?_"

"_No, I want to kill you, Zidane..._"

He frowned as the words snuck into his mind. Where had they come from? Was there something else hidden here--something that he couldn't remember? He had never been able to remember the things from his past before, but being on the Invincible... The further away he got from the others, the better he could remember...

_A strong arm around his waist. He was being dragged somewhere. "Kuja, don't! Please! I didn't do anything to you!" _

_An angry, rough laugh. Lacking the mockery that he now knew from it. "You have no idea, you little brat." _

He paused as he reached a new deck on the ship. This deck was the most familiar yet. He could almost hear his own tiny footsteps pattering along the floor, heading for a room where he was not welcome.

Following the footsteps led him to a tiny, lonely room. It had gone long without use, but he could still faintly recall the final moments in that room. The memories filtered back to him.

"_Why don't you ever listen?!_"

No, this wasn't the room he felt that he was looking for. There was another place on the ship that was demanding his attention.

Further exploring finally led him to the place he was looking for. A large, lavish suite on an upper deck. It was decorated in the same absentminded ornateness as the rest of the ship, but he felt something different there. This had once been his bedroom.

But no... something told him that his brother, Kuja, had claimed the room as his own. There was just something different about it now... He looked around, taking in his surroundings. The occupant of the room hadn't been there in a while. A very fine layer of dust coated the exposed surfaces.

He stepped into the room uncertainly. It felt wrong to be trespassing like this, but he knew that Kuja would never be returning to this place. They were going to go destroy him... so perhaps taking a look wasn't totally wrong.

The bed was made, its satiny dark blue sheets pulled smooth. There were two pillows, piled carefully against the headboard. There was a faint wrinkle at the middle of the bed. Perhaps his brother had sat there before leaving the last time? Maybe he had been putting on his boots... He shook his head. Imagining Kuja performing such a human task was disturbing. Kuja wasn't human--Kuja was a monster.

But then, he wondered as he continued around the room, did that make him a monster too?

After the bed was a desk. It was covered in a collection of books. There were several about the mythology behind Eidolons. The others, much to his surprise, were books of poetry and plays. No wonder Kuja always tried to make off with such an elegant dialogue.

There were sheets of paper tucked into the books, and Zidane pulled out one curiously. The words on the paper were written in a graceful, loopy handwriting. The words were written in Terran, not Gaian, but Zidane was still able to make most of it out.

"'Silver shining; Bright and cold; Deemed unworthy; Replaced by Gold.'"

He frowned slightly. What was going on in Kuja's head? There were more lines written below, but most were in the same cryptic poetic verse. He slipped the paper back into the book and crossed to the other side of the room.

Kuja's dressing table did not surprise him. Kuja _was_ a narcissist, after all. He stared at his own reflection thoughtfully for a moment. So easy that it could have been him in Kuja's place. 

He looked down on what was left on the surface of the dressing table. Apparently, when Kuja left he had taken most of his beauty supplies with him. There were, however, a few things left. The main thing that grabbed his attention was a fine-toothed comb that had been left behind. It looked like the sort that was used to groom a cat, not a person. A closer look revealed a collection of short silver-violet hairs caught in the teeth of the comb. He blinked. The hairs were too short to be from Kuja's hair... unless...

"They're from his tail..." A faint laugh escaped him. He'd never considered combing his own tail. Keeping it clean was enough for him. But he should've expected it from Kuja. Even though the man was in denial and hid his tail, he was apparently not willing to totally neglect it. 

He set the comb down and proceeded to open the drawers of the table. Most were empty, except for the bottom drawer on the left side. Inside was a small box. He pulled the box out, curious, and set it on the table. There was a clasp holding the lid down, but no lock.

There were only two things in the box. A small hairbrush, and a folded piece of paper. He held up the brush, noting with faint surprise that there were still fine blonde hairs tangled in the bristles. Had this been his? Why had Kuja kept it? The piece of paper was actually a very old printoff of an image. There were three children in the image, and he recognized them immediately.

The tallest of the three had shoulder length silver-violet hair. His lids were heavy--he looked exhausted. And miserable. The boy was thin and pale, only a shade away from death when compared to the other two children in the image. Twin blonde heads, one just slightly taller than the other. The taller was smiling brightly, the shorter had a pleasantly restrained smile on her face. The taller of the blondes was in the front of the group--he was the most important.

His gaze returned to the face of Kuja in the picture. The boy looked truly miserable. Had his existence really ruined Kuja that badly?

"I wonder what happened to bring him back..." he sighed, shaking his head. There was so much that he didn't know, that he'd been denied the privilege of knowing.

Whatever had happened, he found himself wishing that it hadn't. He wished that his big brother had not recovered from his depression. It would have saved everyone else a of lot pain and suffering.

They were selfish thoughts, but as Dagger's voice came over the intercom, he remembered why he was on the ship at all.

"Zidane, we're nearing the Iifa Tree, you need to come back down here," her voice echoed through the room. He sighed.

"I'm coming," he called, although he doubted the messaged was actually relayed back to her. He set the picture back in the box, but left the container on the surface of the dressing table.

His brother had once wanted to die, but now he was a coward, afraid of death. Afraid of losing his soul, despite however stained and worthless it had become.

He cast a parting glance around the room, then got to his feet.

_"Kuja!" _

_"Good-bye, Zidane... Good-bye, my little brother." _

_"Why are you doing this?!" _

_"Because I __**love**__ you..." _

A final gasp of memory struck him as he left Kuja's room. He frowned slightly, looking over his shoulder.

Love wasn't the reasoning behind this, was it?

No, not in the sense that Kuja meant...

"It's for your own good..." Zidane whispered as he started back for the Bridge. "I have to destroy you..."

----

_end_


End file.
